I saw this in my Twitter timeline this morning.
It made me wonder what historians of some future time will make of the historical record. I guess in 20 or 50 years there will be enough material to give context, but in a few hundred or a thousand years, after the new dark age and the new renaissance, fragments that remain might be very difficult to interpret.
It makes me wonder about our interpretation of ancient societies based on the fragments that remain and how the tweet above might be interpreted without being able to find other reference points. I can imagine all sorts of plausible but fanciful narratives built on this slim foundation.
Note: Hi future historians :)
Will future historians be able to read the older record that consisted of handwritten documents, I wonder?
ReplyDeleteMy kids have trouble reading handwriting. They see so little except their own. Already a lost art?
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